Dead Heat (w/ Prize, Wet Specimens, Stifled)

Cali crossover thrash torchbearers Dead Heat headline the Fuze Box in Albany. With special guests Prize, Wet Specimens, and Stifled.

Two years ago, the Oxnard, California band Dead Heat released their absolutely stomp-ass debut album Certain Death. The album drew on the history of crossover thrash, the late-’80s moment when hardcore and metal fused into one berserker kamikaze-skater beast, and it injected a whole lot of frantic energy into a style that wasn’t exactly low on energy to begin with. Today, Dead Head have announced that their new LP World At War will arrive later this spring. Its cover art is a thing of beauty.

Dead Heat have had a few lineup changes since Certain Death, and they dropped the compilation track “Know More Pain” last year. The band recorded World At War with Taylor Young, the former Nails member who also produced Certain Death and who might be the best producer in hardcore right now. (Young worked on recent records from Drain, Regional Justice Center, and God’s Hate, and all of those things are monsters.)